The endangerment finding has been killed. What now?
On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency tossed out the scientific determination known as the endangerment finding, which gave the government the authority to fight climate change. President Trump’s E.P.A. has been on a deregulatory roll since last year’s inauguration. But this action is different because the endangerment finding forms the basis on which so many other environmental regulations are built. In a newsletter last year, I compared climate regulations to a table setting. Earlier rollbacks of individual rules were like removing plates, forks, and glasses one by one. Repealing the endangerment finding is more like gathering the tablecloth and carting everything away in one go. If it survives legal challenges, the Trump administration’s move could prevent future presidents from reinstating climate rules unless Congress acts. It could ultimately increase U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent over the next 30 years, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. That’s why E.P.A. Administrator Lee Zeldin touted last week’s move as the “single largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States.” It is expected to swiftly face legal challenges. Immediate environmental impactThe action announced Thursday immediately eliminates limits on greenhouse gases produced by motor vehicles. It also clears the way for similar erasures of emissions limits from other sources, like power plants and oil and gas wells, Lisa Friedman reported. These rollbacks have already begun. Thursday’s announcement included the elimination of a credit for vehicle manufacturers who install engines that turn off automatically when a car comes to a complete stop. The start-stop feature helped cars meet emissions standards, but some motorists disliked it, citing concerns that it wears down a car’s engine. The Trump administration has said its move will result in lower vehicle prices, telling reporters last week that it would save people an average of $2,400 on cars, trucks, and S.U.V.s. Experts have questioned that math. As Hiroko Tabuchi pointed out, it’s not clear that the U.S. auto industry would benefit from the deregulatory push. Much of the rest of the world is rapidly shifting toward electric cars. Without government policies that encourage E.V. adoption, domestic automakers could fall behind their global competitors. What’s nextEnvironmental groups and Democratic-led states are already lining up to sue the Trump administration over its decision to eliminate the endangerment finding, Karen Zraick reported. Because the government’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases falls under the 1970 Clean Air Act, cases will be filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which handles disputes over the act. This court upheld the endangerment finding in 2012, Zraick pointed out, and many experts think it would do so again. The final rule released last week is largely based on legal justifications, rather than disputing the scientific consensus of climate change. The administration argued that the Clean Air Act applies only to direct, local pollution (in contrast to global greenhouse gas emissions) and that American vehicles play too small a role in global warming to warrant regulation. Transportation is the single largest source of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are the leading driver of climate change, which is raising global temperatures, leading to more extreme weather, melting glaciers and rising seas. The E.P.A. argued that it’s the responsibility of Congress to pass legislation to regulate greenhouse gases, not the executive branch through regulatory agencies like the E.P.A. The legal endgameThough it could take years, the case is “all but certain” to hinge on the Supreme Court, Zraick wrote. If the Supreme Court upholds the E.P.A.’s decision, it could prevent future presidents from instituting climate rules. Congress would have to take action to reestablish U.S. climate policy. And today’s Supreme Court is far more conservative than it was 20 years ago, when it instructed the government to study the effects of greenhouse gases on human health — instructions that ultimately led to the creation of the endangerment finding. This raises the prospect that legal challenges to the repeal could backfire. But as Sierra Club senior lawyer Andres Restrepo told Zraick, the group sees inaction as the bigger risk. Karen Zraick contributed reporting.
These Olympic athletes were disqualified for a novel reason: PFASThe Japanese snowboarder Masaki Shiba had just finished his first high-speed, head-to-head run in the parallel giant slalom at the Winter Games when he was abruptly disqualified. It wasn’t a false start, or even a failed doping test. His snowboard had tested positive for traces of PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” which have been banned at the Winter Olympics for the first time this year because of their damage to the environment and the human body. It was one of the first known violations of a new rule that bans the use of ski wax that contains these chemicals, which have moisture-wicking properties that can help skis and snowboards go a lot faster in the snow. — Hiroko Tabuchi
Teddy Roosevelt’s family urges G.O.P. to protect public landsTed Roosevelt IV doesn’t like to put words in a dead man’s mouth. But he’s pretty sure that President Theodore Roosevelt, his great-grandfather, would have been “appalled” by an effort by House Republicans to allow mining near an expanse of wilderness in Minnesota. So he and several relatives recently wrote to Republican senators, urging them against allowing mining upstream from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a vast preserve of glacial lakes and boreal forests crisscrossed by canoe routes and hiking trails. It was a remarkable rebuke of the Republican Party’s apparent retreat from the environmental ethos of Theodore Roosevelt, who protected around 230 million acres of public lands during his presidency. — Maxine Joselow More climate news from around the web:
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